


The Witchfinder

by CynaraM



Series: Friendship is Unnecessary [4]
Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Occult, Platonic Cuddling, Psychological Trauma, Sharing a Bed, Wrongful Imprisonment, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-21 17:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3700845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynaraM/pseuds/CynaraM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonie has disappeared - with her head full of Cabal's secrets.  Follows on the events of "Unheimlich"; my gentle canon divergence continues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Cabal receives a telegram from a necromancer

It had been three weeks since Miss Barrow had written. 

He noticed at the end of the first week. Surfacing briefly from the second cellar, his eye had lit upon the dusty chessboard. He a), made a note to dust, and b), wondered what had become of Leonie’s next move. His last had pinned her knight in a particularly stylish way. Possibly she was wrestling with her reply. No matter. An impasse had arisen in his research; he was away for a week.

Two weeks was unusual. She was avoiding her inevitable defeat. 

Two weeks and three days after her last letter he looked at the board on his way to bed, and it occurred to him that something might be wrong. 

Not wrong. The terse but regular correspondence was dispensable, was it not? But it was odd. Miss Barrow had applied herself to the games tenaciously, undiscouraged by her comprehensive losing streak. She was even improving. Why would she abandon them now? If she had bored of the game, would she not have written?

Miss Barrow;  
You are conceding the game?  
C

He sealed the note with a little quirk in his lips. That, surely, would provoke a reply. But it had been three weeks now, and no reply had arrived. 

****

Cabal’s grocery order had been dropped hurriedly at the end of his walk. The envelope propped on top of the box had blown into the garden. When recovered from the fairies, it proved to be from the telegraph operator. A telegram? He frowned and took it upstairs to his desk.

SHE IS GONE STOP  
SHE IS GONE STOP  
IT WAS NOT ME STOP  
STOP HER DISCLOSURE OR I WILL KILL YOU ALL STOP

Arthur Twiccian had a distinctive prose style. He and Arthur Twiccian had only one mutual female acquaintance. It had been three weeks.

Cabal sat very still. He felt the fizz in his lower back as his adrenal glands dumped epinephrine into his system. A chill and then warmth passed through him, and he knew his face was darkening. His senses sharpened; he could smell the primulas in the garden and hear a bird being mugged by the fairies. He felt a sudden hormonally-enhanced desire to commit atrocities on a person or persons unknown.

He observed the convulsions of his endocrine system with disapproval and did his best to consider the situation calmly. Miss Barrow, who knew a great deal about him - knew the location of his home, knew the contents of the second cellar - had gone missing. Dead or alive, she might have been induced to share what she knew.

He cursed his carelessness. Everything was at risk. Everything. He would prepare the house for an invasion and set out to fix his mistake.


	2. In which Cabal detects and does not kill some university administrators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabal takes the search to Leonie's university.

He did not enjoy detective work, he reflected. It involved speaking with people and considering their petty, self-serving motives and interests. And surely, few people were more petty or self-serving than the faculty and staff who clung to the flanks of the great universities: particularly his current specimen, the matron of Leonie’s residence.

His preparations were complete by midnight. In the dark, he cycled to a railway station he rarely used and took a night train directly to the university town. He checked in with a sleepy desk clerk before dawn and still had time to obtain a list of Leonie's instructors before breakfast, if he had eaten, which he didn't. Food could wait. 

He would rather be planning to deal with the problem Twiccian presented. He wondered in what sort of life was being at the top of a powerful sorcerer’s death list not his most pressing problem? He pictured a mob besieging his empty house and Twiccian breezing in. Well, scuttling in. He had improved his wards and laid some suitably drastic traps, but he had doubts about their efficacy if, somehow, Twiccian came in person. The man was paranoid for a necromancer - and powerful for a biped. If he found the second cellar, if he.... He marshalled his thoughts sternly.

He had read the newspapers on the train. Miss Leonie Barrow, criminology co-ed, had vanished nearly three weeks ago; no suspects; no leads; public urged to come forward; unstated assumption that she was either dead or seduced; Miss Barrow’s father, respected retired D.I., travelling overseas; making his way home with all speed. And that, thought Cabal, was another excellent reason to finish this now, no matter what the cost.

Not for Cabal the chameleon disguises of a Sherlock Holmes. Thankfully, throughout most of England a carefully dressed man of severe aspect will be accepted unquestioningly as a manifestation of some authority. He had approached the matron as an ‘investigator’ and promised her anonymity, and from then on his only task was the savage repression of his every natural reaction to her conniving, puerile, evil-minded, and relentlessly boring character assassination of every person about whom she spoke. Cabal sat rigidly in her overupholstered private office, searching for information among her trivialities.

“The university’s come down in the world from what it was, Mr. Frank,’ and she sucked a tiny eclair into her mouth like a grouper devouring a worm. “I was telling Mr. Jones, That Miss Barrow, now. She was one of them. Out at the library, well, so she said, at all hours. Too much mail. That always gives them away. When I was a girl, a lady got a letter a week from her mama, and anything else would be opened by the matron. But can I get that dean to approve the simplest precautions? She got two or three a week, with a man’s writing on the front. And double-sealed!” The flow of her indignation had carried her away, and she checked herself. ‘Not that I would open a private letter for anything but the most pressing reasons, Mr. Frank, but sometimes I have been sorely tempted, for the sake of the young women under my care."

Cabal barely managed to restrain himself from flicking the sugary pastry perched on his saucer into the woman’s hair. “Your conscientiousness does you credit, Mrs. Salvage. Had you noticed any unusual behaviour before Miss Barrow’s disappearance?” 

Here Mrs. Salvage’s eyes glittered, “I reported it to the Dean, but I daresay he didn’t look at it until the girl went missing. There she was, swaggering around with that hoyden’s mop of hair flying in her eyes, and her as bold as two monkeys. She came in after curfew alone, quite alone - though I daresay she hadn’t been alone long - and I caught her going upstairs to her room. And I am loathe to shock you, Mr. Frank, but as the board’s investigator….” 

“Do not concern yourself” murmured Cabal, who had claimed no such authorisation.

“But she said right to my face that it was none of my…. dratted… (and dratted was not her word, Mr. Frank) business where she had been, and that if I didn’t like it, I could report her to the dean! 

“And how long was that before her disappearance?"

“Only five days. You’ll be thinking there’s a connection, and you’re right."

“Yes?"

“Well it’s obvious, isn’t it? She ran off with that man from the letters. No doubt they were carrying on the night she came home late.” She dropped her righteously erect posture and bent towards Cabal eagerly. “But unless I’m much mistaken he’s killed her, or why wouldn’t she have written home by now? She’ll be strangled in a ditch somewhere, you mark my words, Mr. Frank. And it’s the man from the letters who put her there. It’s a judgement on her."

Cabal fingered his flick knife longingly before withdrawing a printed card. “If you recall anything else, please write. Do not tell the dean.” 

Marvellous. Perfect. He now knew that Leonie had received letters - from him - and had come in late one night and somehow mastered her natural human urge to end the matron. How useful. He believed he was proceeding in the most efficient way possible, but he chafed at the delays and the people that stood between him and the few details that might help. In a perfect world, he could gather it all into his mind at once and sift through it. In a perfect world….

He subsequently interviewed Leonie’s residence neighbour, who told him very little while dripping tears all over the teashop tablecloth. No, she knew nothing about why Leonie might have disappeared. She didn’t know about a man. She didn’t know Leonie had come in late. She was just terribly worried about Leonie. An utter waste of time, Cabal thought, as he oiled his knife and put it in his interior pocket. If his third interview went anything like his first, he might want temptation out of easy reach.

The Thrott professor for criminological studies was a bony, patrician man of about sixty, a scaffolding of a man. "Sent by the family, were you? Yes, well. A terrible pity. A rather bright young lady, Miss Leonie Barrow, but - well, this abnormal psychology fad of hers. One hates to be critical at this point, but it was all a bit larky, wasn't it? If she had applied herself to early childhood development, or something more suitable, I always thought she might have been rather... But I am running on, aren't I?” A more sensitive man might have noted a wintry climate emitting from his guest, who adjusted something in an inner pocket like a smoker fingering a cigarette case. He continued. "Well. It is to be hoped that the young lady did not fall prey to a more common or garden variety of the mental defectives with whom she was so entranced. She struck me as a sensation-seeker, Mr. Jones. A sad story, but not an unprecedented one. We are a place of learning, not a nanny service, and I hope the family understands that."

“My name is Saxon,” corrected Cabal, who did not care to be misnamed even under an alias.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Saxon. Jones was the other one. Well, good day."

He headed to the criminology department for a spot of light stalking before dinner: the amorous don Leonie had mentioned, a shaggy fortyish specimen. Too unambitious or too stupid or too good to succeed in academia. He remembered the type from his own unregretted university days. A puppy, he thought as he watched the older man through opera glasses. Cabal vented some of his frustration on a vigorous and destructive search of the man's rooms, but found nothing to link him to Leonie's disapperance. 

Outside, Cabal walked. How had she lived and worked among these imbeciles, these hidebound, malicious, self-regarding... Englishmen. And Englishwomen. And now- he did not often feel pity, but he was not amused by the thought of Frank Barrow's reaction when he returned from his travels overseas and learned the full enormity of what had happened. And some reptile like the Thrott professor would tell him. He gave Barrow a year, perhaps two, after he learned his daughter was dead. 

He had wasted the day listening to imbeciles. It was now too late to call on any others, so he searched Leonie’s room at the residence; toiletries and valise still in place. Ink-stained notebook with chess game. She had not kept any of his letters or anything else that might link her to him. The only clue to their association (besides, perhaps, the flask of water in her night table) was the dog-eared record of their games. He could have burned it, but he left it where he found it. 

She was, most likely, dead. It was just barely possible that it had been some garden variety killer or monomaniac who had taken her instead of someone connected to him or to Twiccian. The name Jones had been ringing in his ears. If Cabal's enemies had taken her, he needed to know what they had learned and how large a crater it would take to make the problem go away. If she was dead, he would give her the vengeance she would likely not have wanted and see she was at rest, if he could. 

He turned his steps back towards his hotel. It was full night now, and the university-lout-meets-local-lout nightlife was in full swing, the grudging respectability of the day gone to bed at nine with the lights out. He was not responsible. Miss Barrow had walked into everything with her eyes open. If anything was to blame, it was her dogged sense of responsibility, her belief in justice - 

"Cheer up, chum. You look like your dog's died.” The hirsute man with the hand-rolled cigarette gargled it from the alley as he walked through the spitting rain.

"Lion" he murmured to himself. He didn't know why he had said that. Too much wine with dinner. Any trace of the puppyish had been extinguished in Cabal years since. 

***

Back at his room, he pushed the bed to the wall and the writing desk beside it. The floorboards were scrupulously clean but somewhat uneven. He pulled the stiff carpet from before the hearth and brushed it carefully. He had put something off, an avenue of research he should have tried before leaving home. One could learn the answers to some simple questions by casting lots. 

The short rods with one flat side had impressive runic carvings, but chopsticks would have been roughly as effective; the difficulty was in reading how they fell. 

The tightly-woven carpet was a good surface, and Cabal knelt in front of it and cast the rods. He examined them closely for several minutes, his lips moving in silent calculation or incantation. He slowly sat back on his heels and looked hard at the arrangement once more before sweeping it into a bundle. He cast them again. By the time he had finished, he had thrown them perhaps thirty times, and he was almost sober. He drew a deep breath with a hint of a shake in it. Wherever she was, Miss Barrow was probably alive.


	3. In which Leonie makes a new acquaintance

"I am Witchfinder Jones, Leonie.” His voice was deep and plummy, a wireless voice. 

“Then I can’t imagine why you’ve gone to the trouble, Mr. Jones. I'm not a witch. May I go?" She had been kidnapped that morning - never mind how. She was still hoping she might be able to talk, bluster, or explain her way out, but she had doubts that her father's name carried much weight here.

He chuckled. “Witches don't tend to study criminology, Leonie. And they generally draw attention to themselves before they are your age. No. You’ve been keeping some bad company. The Dee Society has become interested.” 

“And what is the Dee Society?"

"A private organization working in the best interests of the crown."

She had been deposited in a cell made from well-fitted stone which had been converted to electric light in an amateurish-looking way. There was no guard outside the door. There was a ring of inscribed metal within, apparently unbroken, that reminded her of the ceramic door-ward at the entrance to Twiccian’s living space. It was her first, and, she hoped, last dungeon. It was damp. Everything was unrelievedly grim and brutally clean.

This room was similar, but the light was brighter, and instead of a single narrow bunk it contained a table and chairs, both bolted down, and three sets of peep-holes in the wall opposite her. She could not tell if they were occupied.

Jones did not answer her question. "You are particularly interested in necromancers, are you not?"

"I am studying the psychological pathology of necromancy, yes."

"No. You are a criminology undergraduate with an obsession."

The witchfinder looked more like a cabinet minister. A quiet suit, a trilby hat set on the table, a small officer’s moustache. There was a sturdy silver pin four inches long threaded twice through his lapel.

"I suppose intellectual curiosity can look like obsession." 

"You were involved in the Penlow on Thurse incident, weren't you?"

There had been a full police report of that night, of course. But while the presence of the carnival and the demon-led riot that had ended the night had been widely reported, the villagers' account had been so outlandish that the police had wondered if dear Frank Barrow hadn't gone a bit odd. There were holes in his story, and he watched his daughter like she was about to die before his eyes. 

They had looked for the train. They had inspected the undisturbed field where the carnival was supposed to have taken place. The injuries were real enough, but even the booth prizes had gone missing. 

“Yes. Well, I lived in Penlow. Most of the town was involved somehow."

Jones leafed through his folder. “It was something infernal. Rumours of soul-stealing. Cabal's doing, surely, though we don’t have the full report. And yet, the Senzan authorities show you collaborating with him barely a year later." He picked up a long sheet of paper.

"Where did you get that document?” She recognized her own signature on the narrow page. It was her statement about the crash of the Princess Hortense. "I'd hardly call my acquaintance with Herr Cabal 'collaboration'. I tried to turn him in to the Senzan authorities; he framed me and blew up an aeroship. While I was aboard."

"And your more recent acquaintance?"

She felt uncomfortable. How was that known? "I am not aware that I need justify any of my actions to you, whoever you are. If you represent the crown, I want a lawyer. If you are criminals, I demand to know what you want."

"Perhaps you and Cabal are - pardon me, Leonie - lovers, and that is why you are protecting him?"

Leonie's face stayed blank. "...so you haven't met him, then."

"Some might find him dashing."

Leonie was amused. “Dashing. Witchfinder, Herr Johannes Cabal is the sort of man who would eat a fresh peach with a knife and fork."

"But since your first meeting, you have shown a preoccupation with necromancers. Perhaps just with one necromancer?"

“The incident with the carnival was…” traumatic, she thought. “Strange, and troubling. It’s quite normal that I would feel a need to understand what had upset my family and my town so deeply. Your alternative theory, that Cabal is some sort of Don Juan of the necromantic set, is risible. Risible is not a strong enough word." She frowned as if searching her mind. "If I think of one, I'll tell you."

“Very witty, Leonie. But I believe we have indulged you long enough. If you do not assist us in our enquiries, there will be consequences. Expulsion, loss of reputation, perhaps the publication of some of your activities we have kept secret so far. It would ruin your father. Given his record, we are willing to believe you have kept your activities a secret from him so far."

"I don't give a damn what you're ready to believe, Jones. You can contact my lawyer or put me back in my cell."

This time he complied, with the latter option at least. She didn’t believe he'd be so accommodating again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive my tarnishing of the good name of the Dee Society - but though this is marked AU, I think I could make a case for it being plausible.....


	4. In which Cabal menaces, and Leonie is very alone indeed

In the small hours of the morning Cabal looked through his window at the city. Streets were picked out in a patchwork of gaslight and fluorescent, with some lit only by lone lamps and the moon. He smoked carefully, tapping his cigar over the ashtray with more attention than it deserved. 

Alive, then. She might not have told his secrets - yet. She might be holding out. She might - Cabal had seen some unpleasant things in his career. 

He had tried to sleep for a few hours but had been awoken by one of his infrequent dreams: a tangled mess of blonde hair and blistered hands and Twiccian gloating from a steam velocipede. He came awake reaching for his knife, sweating. Gott, but he hated dreaming. No more alcohol until this was over, and no more sleep tonight. There were people in this town who might know if something unusual had occurred: if a necromancer’s enemy was at work, or if a young woman had become a target. For them, this hour was only the shank of the evening.

And kidnapping was more complicated than killing. It might leave marks he could follow.

If Leonie was alive, obviously keeping her alive was preferable - if only because Twiccian was likely to begin an apocalypse out of sheer nerves if she didn't resurface soon. 

He dressed and left. The rest of the night was spent visiting dark storefronts where shopkeepers in occult goods opened their doors only to the correct knock, and one or two private homes where blue candles burned in the night. Cabal dealt in the black market for occult supplies frequently enough that his face was known here, and he had been an exemplary, if sharp customer in the past to one or two of the businesses. Some had previously written him off as a "pasty-faced dilettante," an assessment they rapidly revised upward this night to “cold-eyed bastard with a mouth on him” and then, as required, to “downright menacing gentleman,” the latter paired with an anxious glance over a shoulder.

At all these establishments Cabal heard whispers, like the scuttlings of voles from a hawk. “Jones.” “Mr. Jones.” “Lord Jones.” Whoever this Jones was, he was a figure of terror. And then, finally, an identifying slip. “Dee Society.” 

“The Dee Society,” repeated Cabal. “Would this Jones be a... witchfinder?” His answer was in the rapidity with his sources scattered. Witchfinders were the natural enemies of the occult underclass, the half-talented half-charlatan dregs that collected at the bottom of any city. Now that he had an organization and a name, his task was half completed. 

She was alive - but where, why, and what had she told? And were the stories of the witchfinder true? Tiresome thoughts, which would not answer themselves. He had miles to walk, people to harass and menace. 

“The Dee Society,” coldly, to the thin, shifty character selling charms in an alley. “The Dee Society," clearly, to the dark-skinned waif who saw more by the Masonic Temple than anyone realized. “The Dee Society,” coldly, to the blue-haired matron with a cabinet full of ‘family heirlooms.’ And then, finally, after dawn, “the Dee Society,” wearily, to the government clerk who could, for a fee, erase minor occult convictions. He was easily bribed, and he was willing to talk because he believed he was protected by his position.

“You’re looking for them? It’s more likely they’d come looking for you,” the man smirked, and suddenly Cabal’s knife was in his hand, pressing against the man’s carotid. 

“I have had enough this night.” And he shut his teeth on the rest of the words. "Where.” 

He had a location. An address. And it wasn’t far. But first, some preparations. Sleep was something he used to do, before the telegram. 

***

Back at the hotel, Cabal sent a telegram of his own and dressed for battle. Suit brushed, fresh linen, cravat severely taken in hand until it was a model of restraint; Gladstone bag; death’s head cane. Not for the first time, it crossed his mind that he should find a more practical handle for the sword-stick. Call it whimsy. He paid his bill, arranged for his luggage, and departed.

****

She wore the dingy overbleached shift they had brought her after the first questioning. She had put it on when ordered to do so, not quite willing to face the guards for the alternative. Some days she was left alone in her cell, seeing no one except at the irregular arrival of her meals. On others, the witchfinder harangued her for hours. He wanted to know the location of Cabal's lair; his aliases; his enemies; his aims and evil plans. Leonie demanded her lawyer, over and over, sometimes to Jones, sometimes to the three shadowed pairs of peep-holes in the far wall. She wondered if anyone sat behind them, or if this farce was being played without an audience. She didn't know which was more absurd and frightening. Was she within the power of one man, more or less, or had an entire organization connived at this?

One day, Jones withdrew the pin from his lapel and held it lightly, tip to point between his index fingers. "This is not merely a badge of office, Leonie. I don't know why you're defending this monster, but it will bring you nothing but pain and disgrace. We can keep you safe from him. He cannot keep you safe from us."

Leonie lay back in the little chair, her very ease conveying her contempt. She kept her knees neatly together under the garment, and her bare feet on the floor. "So I should look for the biggest bully and hide behind him?" She laughed, and Jones' face hardened. “I am Leonie Barrow, you dreadful little man - Miss Barrow to you - and I wouldn't side with you against cholera. Now bring me a lawyer or shut your pompous face." And then, of course, he had to hurt her. 

She nursed the puncture in her cell. It didn't hurt so much, really- the humiliation was the worst part, but the humiliation had been very bad indeed. It had taken two of them to hold her. She tried to remember if her tetanus shot was up to date and looked around, again, for something to keep out the cold. She counted the time until her father could be back in England, moving heaven and earth to find her. It would be soon, or perhaps he had started already. Dad would never give up, would use every connection and dirty trick he had to find her - until he was persuaded she was dead. And she could die in this hole before Cabal noticed he was waiting for her next chess move.

Was she doing this for Cabal? She had the odd feeling that if she were to accede to Jones' demands, he would release her as he'd claimed. Good girls were sent back to their schools and their papas. But Cabal had earned the stubborn loyalty of the Barrows - well, this Barrow - and she would not betray the secrets she knew only because Cabal had tried to protect her. 

Moreover, this Dee Society, with its secret cells and private mandate, made her flesh crawl. If she sold Cabal down the river to save herself her father would embrace her and thank heaven he had her back - but she rather thought that when she told him the whole story, he would not be proud.


	5. In which Cabal arrives

The building he had been directed to was on Mill House Road - and proved, in fact, to be an old mill. The solid stone structure was heavily shuttered at its windows, and the door was solid oak. A low wall surrounded it, and Cabal could see the telltale signs of wards. 

At least it looked small and easy to search, although it could have one of those tiresome meandering substructures. He investigated a rise in the land nearby and a clump of elm on its far side. Towards evening, a respectable-looking middle-aged man in a small hat exited the oak door. Cabal caught a flash of silver on his lapel - excellent. A private car picked him up at the end of the lane and drove off. Cabal's plan did not depend on the witchfinder's absence, but it was convenient. 

As the spring evening turned chilly, one of the Dee society's trees exploded. He had made several arrangements that morning, among them the materials for a distraction. A bland-looking guard emerged, gun drawn, to investigate. A secondary charge afforded Cabal enough time to slip through the door, Gladstone in hand. 

The layout was simple. Exterior office, records room, private office, and a locked room that likely contained the more dangerous weapons, books, and other resources. After a quick survey of the private office, Cabal made himself comfortable in the records room. Cabal especially hated the quasi-governmental conspiracies; their paperwork was so much better. Removing evidence of one's activities became more complex when one had to worry about carbon paper and copies filed with head office.

He ended his researches by removing three files and placing them under a pile of papers on a small, overcrowded desk, and then pouring buckets of water into the filing cabinets. Water was almost as good a destroyer of paperwork as fire, and he was not finished here. 

*****

Eventually, two guards appeared in the doorway. Cabal was feeding assorted pages into a little fire he had kindled in the hearth.

“This pains me, you know. Beautifully organized. One of you is a halfway competent administrator. You? Yes, well. Your society does good work sometimes. Most students of the dark arts are malicious clods, fully deserving of a few nights in a dungeon run by inveterate Anglicans. Like most people."

The other guard erupted. “You’re lying. All the records are encrypted."

“Encrypted. I am almost embarrassed for you. But I suppose it had to be something the average occult civil servant could manage." His tone made it clear that he doubted that the overlap of those two demographics could hold a pen or see around its own apelike supraorbital ridge.

“But you,” he continued, raising his eyes to the administrator, who suddenly feel a kinship with filleted fish everywhere, “should have noticed. You likely have noticed, in fact, that your superior here has filed no reports with your head office for fully five years. I don’t blame them. Your leaders are busy playing dress-up and pretending to rule the world, and they have likely fired their own administrator for refusing to file according to cabalistic numerology or some such twaddle. You, however, should have noticed that he is running this place as a private fiefdom.”

“You’re lying. Now come quietly."

"I have been reading his case files. He is a mythic figure, in some circles; a soldier of light. It is very disappointing to find a man with the soul of a banker who stabs undergraduates with pins for his own unsavoury satisfaction."

"It’s into the lockup with you, and we’ll call his lordship back."

“Yes.” Cabal smiled like a boning knife. “Do."


	6. In which they meet

The door opened and Leonie sprang to her feet. It might be dinner, it might be anything. It was Johannes Cabal being flung into her cell by two quiet guards. His supercilious expression suggested that, as a reluctant connoisseur of guards, cells, and being flung to the floor, this experience was under par. 

The door closed, and he sat up to look closely at the ring of wards around the frame. Then he stood and looked at Leonie, who was staring at him from the corner as if she doubted his reality. “What do they know? What have you told them?” 

She blinked. Yes, that was him. “Good evening to you, too, Cabal. I hope you’re well, and that the psychological strain of the past few weeks hasn’t been too much for you."

He crossed to her, eyes shadowed in the chiaroscuro from the electric light. “What do they know?"

Hating Cabal for being insensitive was like hating water for being wet. Still, one was human. "That you're a very boring man for a necromancer."

"I will lose my temper if I must ask again, Miss Barrow.” 

He really looked as if he might. She stepped toe-to-polished shoe with him, short in her bare feet, and looked him in the eye. "Nothing, Cabal. I've told them nothing."

"You're..." He stopped himself. Of course she was sure. And there were accomplished liars in the world, but Leonie Barrow was not one of them. His work was safe. He felt he would like to sit down on the bunk, so he did. "Thank you.” 

"You're welcome. I wouldn't tell that man the way to the grocer’s.” She sat next to him. “Are you all right? Do you have a plan to get us out? I am trying to care if your plan kills the witchfinder."

"Thank you for protecting my work.” 

Something in his voice made her uncomfortable, so she replied lightly, “oh, go ahead and make me feel better about it. Thank god I'm wearing a smock in a freezing cell to make the world safe for you to commit violence on the laws of man and nature." Leonie moved closer to Cabal in the dank chill of the room. At this point, she’d consider leaning on Satan if it would take the chill away. She shivered. 

Cabal noticed. Her skin tone and frequent blinking suggested they hadn’t been giving her enough food or water. He should have anticipated that.

“The cold is part of the campaign to break you down. Have they been waking you at odd hours, skipping meals?"

“Yes. I’m never visiting this hotel again.” The weak joke took effort. "I am glad to see you. To see anyone, but...." She bit her lip. She would not start sobbing. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to stop. She cast about for a change of topic. The fall had grazed Cabal’s wrist. "So. You do bleed red."

"As you have had ample opportunity to learn."

“You should wrap that up."

“With what? Don't you have a petticoat to sacrifice?"

“Not at the moment. Use your cravat before you go after my undergarments. And you're a few decades out of date.”

"It is not my area of expertise."

"So I was trying to explain to the witchfinder.” 

Cabal gave her a long look, but decided that the answer was unlikely to be enlightening or compatible with his dignity. Suddenly he was exhausted. “Yes, Miss Barrow, there is a plan. But it won’t be ready until tomorrow. They’ll spend the evening pawing through my possessions, I imagine, and thinking up ways to use us against each other. Jones seems to like a long game.” Leonie looked away. “I am going to rest. It has been an active two days. I advise you to do the same.” And he lay down on the bunk.

***

Leonie had been going on sheer nerve for some time now, and Cabal’s appearance, as if borne into the dungeon on clouds of glory by angels singing hosanna, had taken the marrow out of her. Leonie was too tired to care if he didn’t like it. And too lonely. "Move over, Cabal."

One may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Commandeering half of his overcoat as a blanket and more or less using Johannes Cabal, necromancer, as a pillow was awkward, but he didn’t bristle, and her misgivings were swallowed by the wave of animal comfort at being warm and with - well, with Cabal, she supposed. Someone she trusted. When she had stopped waiting for an insult, she relaxed. "This isn't going to revive my reputation at all. Jones is already convinced I'm your adoring catspaw."

“The Dee Society can presume you’re having premarital relations with Ghatanothoa, for all I care.” He paused. "Must you, Miss Barrow?” Flinching was beneath his dignity. He hadn't flinched for Mirkarvian madmen, and he wouldn't flinch now.

“Cabal, this was your idea."

"It was not." 

"If you say so. As God almighty is my witness, your questionable virtue is safe from me. That is a perfectly innocent arm on your chest - pardon me for mentioning either item - and frankly, I would think you had faced more distressing situations in your career. And I scarcely see how to avoid, well. Overlapping. The bunk is too narrow for us to stretch out like a pair of corpses on a slab. Is that point of reference familiar enough for you?" 

“Very amusing. But even ignoring the proximity, Miss Barrow, your hair is in my face - in fact, it appears to be everywhere, possibly filling this entire cell. Also, I have some experience with the average weight of a human head, and yours is staggeringly heavy. That can’t be brain, or you’d be able to play chess." 

She yawned elaborately. “If you want to whinge, you can whinge on the floor. I am trying to sleep.” Was she smiling? It was impossible to see.

“I will be on the floor in a minute if you don’t stop crowding me."

“You’re loud, Cabal,” she muttered into his vest, "but at least you’re warm." And her thumb smoothed once over a half-inch of plain black cotton in an absent-minded way.

She dropped abruptly into sleep, her bruised mind letting go with relief. As her neck relaxed and her breathing slowed he moved his arm to her shoulders - to keep her on the bunk. Her limp arm around him, he held her, no doubt coincidentally, closer to his indurated heart. His work was safe. He tried to spit out an errant hair. Thus arranged, he closed his eyes and slept peacefully for the first time since receiving the telegram.


	7. In which there is an escape, for now

Cabal slept lightly, without hearing any cries from upstairs. So much for his preferred plan. The next morning (or predawn, he estimated) they awoke, disentangled, and rose. Leonie was flushed with sleep - or possibly a realisation that she might have a crease from the edge of Cabal’s waistcoat printed on her cheek - but she stood a little straighter than she had. Cabal was pale and detached, but not unusually so. “When do you expect a guard, and how many are there?"

“There are only two that I’ve seen. Someone comes once or twice a day with food, normally. The time changes, and sometimes they don’t come."

“Have you anything sharp?"

“….no."

He seated himself on the bunk, picked up the frock coat he had laid aside for sleep, and unravelled a thread in the back of the collar. 

For once, Leonie vowed to herself, she was going to play Watson and let him explain all his brilliant plans. It chafed, but it was the least she could do. “So did you just present yourself at the door and ask to be imprisioned?"

A hint of smugness eased itself into its customary place. "In my hour of need, a quantity of explosives became available on the black market. It is enough to make one believe in a benevolent providence. Not me, of course, but it might confuse someone else into doing so.” Cabal pinched the fabric and maneuvered something slim, a very small vial or a very large pill, out the gap he had opened in the seam. The light slid along its surface like oil. 

“What is it?” 

“It is one of a pair. The other I traded to Arthur Twiccian; it allowed him to escape from the asylum. I do not know its origin or its nature, but it is magical and very, very rare.” He stood and held it to the light.

“But what is it?"

The smugness faded and he shrugged. “I do not precisely know. But it should unlock the door and disable the wards."

“But you do know how to use it.” She reminded herself that Watson was generally more polite, even when Holmes was asking embarrassing questions and rolling around in the underbrush like a scots terrier. 

He ignored the implied question and assessed her from head to toe: not in a spirit of masculine appreciation, but the way a knacker might assess a sheep for health and soundness. She sat on the bunk, engulfed in Cabal's overcoat. She had not asked to borrow it, but under the circumstances he was willing to let it pass.

His conclusions were not favourable: she was, despite the improvement in her manner, lethargic and fragile. Reflexes slow, her nerves still overwrought. To be sure, she was more of a liability than usual, but there was something else. something nagging at the edge of his perception. Something about her appearance was disquieting. He stared at her, trying to pin it down. Useless things, intimations.

“Stay here while I clear the path. I may be able to cope with you as a handicap if I must, but you would endanger both of us."

“What a nice invitation. What are you planning to do up there?” 

It was something about her face. Distant. Fay? A suggestion of inhumanity. An incongruous thought. Leonie was, above all, humane. “I shall recover my belongings and discourage the witchfinder."

"Discourage.” Leonie closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the wall. "I suppose this is the bit where I'm supposed to insist upon going along to share the danger, and prevent you from murdering everyone in the place, but I admit I'm feeling less enthusiasm than usual.” Wearily, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. Her eyes seemed very blue. Another incongruous thought. Eyes did not change colour. They only appeared to do so in relation to adjacent colours and qualities of light.

"That might be best,” he said, staring at her. "I was planning to knock you unconscious if you became a burden.” He went to the cot and peered at Leonie, whose brow furrowed as he bent over her. 

Pupillary constriction! Her pupils were tight little dots surrounded by wide blue irises. In the dim light they should have been dilated, if anything. Could it be caused by strain on the nerves? Or… “Have they drugged you?"

“No, I don’t think so. Does this have anything to do with our escaping?” She was trying to contain her irritation, but she was lightheaded and thirsty and still, somehow, terribly tired. Cabal was still scrutinising her. Leonie wondered if Watson had often been tempted to swat Holmes on on the side of the head. “What is it?” 

“You should have an eye examination. Now keep quiet and stay out of my way.” She nodded and rested her head back again. She looked quite limp. He felt… he wasn’t sure, but it was in his abdomen. A pang? He gave up waiting for her to produce an irritable comeback.

The capsule broke unspectacularly under Cabal’s heel. It did not release anything visible, but they had heard a chorus of deep clunks as heavy tumblers turned in the door and perhaps elsewhere in the structure, and the room’s wards gleamed for a moment. Leonie shivered.

Cabal cracked the door open. The corridor was empty. It was always a mistake not to invest in guards. He left the door open behind him and took the narrow stone steps to the ground floor. He stepped quietly, and it was just as well; outside the door there was a guard, dozing with his back to the wall. Cabal took a firm hold of his collar, pulled him sharply through the door, and threw him down the stairs before he could make a sound. He lay still, stunned or unconscious. Leonie’s white face appeared below, and Cabal waved a hand at the guard. Surely she could cope with that. 

Above, a light came from a crack in the door to the private office. Cabal looked through, while staying well back of the opening. Jones was sitting at his desk, writing and smiling. He had stayed awake to finger the contents of the Gladstone, which stood open on a table behind the desk. Padded case, instrument folder, notebook, were laid out, but Cabal's gaze passed over them looking for something else. Jones must have noticed a movement in the hall; he was starting to stand when Cabal walked into his office and struck him across the face with his own brass inkstand. 

The plan had been to acquire a more conventional weapon from storage or the front office, but mental flexibility was essential to a successful plan. He was disappointed when the witchfinder did not fall to the floor, but instead bulled out of his chair and around the desk to close with Cabal, who sidestepped as far as the space allowed only to be caught by Jones' outstretched arm. Jones clutched him close and punched him first in the stomach, driving the wind out of him, and then in the ribs. Bright pain lit up his side, and he was fairly sure something had cracked. 

No time to confirm that now; he could not let Jones land another blow. Even as this ran through his mind he expelled the breath he had been holding against the pain and drove his knee hard into Jones’ testicles while taking hold of the witch finder’s hair and allowing Cabal's weight to bear them both to the floor. He took care to land on top. 

Through the eye-watering pain, Jones’s lungs emptied explosively as a black leather shoe trod squarely in the middle of his chest. Cabal had gained the table with the Gladstone bag. With great rapidity but extreme care, Cabal reached into the bag and withdrew the Webley with both sets of fingertips.

He analysed the weight of the revolver while Jones dragged himself to his feet; it had at least one round in it, perhaps two, but it had, of course, been fully loaded when he arrived. He disliked it when people touched his things. He addressed the older man. “I can hardly believe this myself, but am not planning to kill you. Sit.” The last syllable was delivered with equal measures of insult and threat.

“I know you’ve murdered.” Jones was wheezing as he complied, face furrowed, and pulled the chair to the desk. He was strong, but he didn’t have the wind for sustained fighting, Cabal observed. 

“I wouldn’t need to go to the trouble. I could tell Arthur Twiccian you’re chasing necromancers.” 

“I am a servant of the crown."

“You are a sick animal.” He continued conversationally, "I am thought to be a monster in some quarters, and I have indeed done three or four terrible things in the name of science - but I've read your notes." Jones' eyes flicked to a folder on his desk. They were filled with notes and drawings to rival Audobon's. "Have you killed one yet? Would I find bones in the millyard, if I cared to look?" 

"No-one misses a few witches.” Jones smirked.

"Leonie Barrow is not a witch."

"But she is running around with you, playing at apprentice when it suits her, daddy's little criminology student the rest of the time. Well, she can't have it both ways. She needs to be taken down a peg." A smile stretched his prim little mouth under the military moustache. Blood seeped into it from his upper lip, split by the inkstand. “The interrogation has been very polite so far, Mr. Cabal - threats against her family, reputation, and person, some softening techniques, some little piercings." Cabal’s eyebrows drew together faintly. He hadn't seen any wounds, nor had Leonie mentioned them. He wondered where they were. "She's stood up well so far, I grant you, but once I’ve seen you off I'll have her crawling in another month."

Cabal was still, as if an idea had just occurred to him. 

"You don't like that thought? Or maybe y’do." Jones grinned bloodily, and in his round, warm voice, said, like an excellent joke, “I knew that bitch whore was fucking you.” 

Cabal shrugged, as one who has been indulgent enough. He generally believed the results of violence did not compensate for the trouble involved, but there was no denying that he felt a little glow of vicious pleasure as he smashed the Webley hard into Jones’ smug face. Jones overbalanced and fell to the floor, and a knife, recovered from some spot under the desk, fell from the wounded man's hand. Cabal walked two steps to his side, kicked the blade away, and stamped Jones’ kneecap to powder. For all of necromancy's drawbacks, Cabal thought as he bent low over the hoarsely screaming witchfinder, sometimes his profession afforded opportunities for great personal satisfaction. 

He placed his switchblade at Jones’ throat. The witchfinder slowly dragged his attention from his outraged patella to the necromancer’s face. When Cabal had the man’s attention he spoke slowly and clearly. 

“I will not waste my time explaining what was wrong with that statement. I will, instead, leave you to puzzle it out for yourself, no doubt from the depths of an invalid’s chair. Now pay close attention, Jones. Jones.” He demanded the man’s attention as it threatened to return to the work of keening and turning a mottled red colour. "We will have an arrangement.” 

Cabal rose and divided his attention between Jones and gingerly withdrawing a pair of thick gauntlets from the Gladstone. He drew them on over his kid gloves. With more assurance he reached into the bag again and pulled out a thick parcel. He had rather hoped the Witchfinder would open it himself, but he had been too circumspect or possibly too busy gloating. Cabal put a foot on the unresisting man's neck while he performed the next steps.

He cut through waxed twine and undid layers of newsprint and cloth to reveal a leather pouch a little more than a foot long. The leather was pale and unpleasantly wrinkled. He removed the glass chimney from Jones’ oil lamp. He broke a wax seal, meticulously retaining the fragments of wax. He withdrew the book that had been encased in so many shielding layers. It was a recent biography of Charles Darwin.

It was a shame, he thought, that Jones couldn’t appreciate the subtle manipulation of arcane forces it had taken to move Twiccian’s summoning ward into an ordinary book. He’d selected the least objectionable volume from the madman's bedtime reading and slowly, painstakingly, drained the trigger spell into the quarto-sized volume. Cabal, still wearing the gauntlets, picked up the biography and pressed it lightly to the back of the witchfinder’s hand, still clenched around his mutilated knee. 

A dark mist leapt from the soberly-bound volume to Jones’ skin. Within a moment, a knotted circle in veinous blue raised itself on the back of his hand. At the touch of the book he had jerked away, but too late, and now he stared at his hand in horror, forgetting his injuries in confusion and dread. A subsonic vibration had started, and the air at one end of the room thinned and distorted as if something was trying to press through it. 

And then it stopped. Cabal was pressing a signet ring into the melted wax that sealed the leather pouch with the book safely inside. The mark persisted on Jones’ hand. Cabal was satisfied. He felt it was time to explain, again with the aid of the switchblade.

“You will not seek out Miss Barrow or myself. I will not release the demon. If, Witchfinder, I feel a sudden urge to refresh my memory of the great naturalist's life, a large catlike demon will appear. It will devour you messily and smugly. If you approach Miss Barrow or me, I will become curious about his years studying barnacles. If I take a dislike to your further actions, I will desire to reacquaint myself with his time among the Galapagos finches.'

Cabal bent closer. "Continue your work for the Dee Society, if you like. Your official work is largely harmless. But do not offend me.” And he kicked Jones in the kneecap - just once more. It would keep him distracted while Cabal left the room to fetch Miss Barrow; the little hum of satisfaction he felt was merely a bonus. He retrieved his hat, dropped his belongings into the Gladstone, withdrew the gauntlets, and exited the room. It was time to retrieve Miss Barrow and depart.

In the hallway he found Leonie. Her face was blank. Even Cabal, never sensitive, guessed that she had been standing there for some time. “We must go before he arms himself."

They heard shattering glass and porcelain, and the hall brightened fractionally. Cabal knew what that meant. He hesitated to touch her, but she was not moving, and Jones was severely inconvenienced rather than incapacitated; he reached for her arm to tow her out of the building, willing or not. Leonie, as quick to understand, swatted his hand away. 

She did not appear hysterical, Cabal decided. She struggled with herself for a moment, moved to follow him, then struck the wall hard with the flat of her hand, swore, and walked back to the stairs. The guard was bound tightly with electrical wires. Leonie stepped neatly over him, every motion economical and tense. She unbound the man’s feet and struck him in the face. Cabal blinked. When the guard opened his eyes she said "it’s burning. Run.”

The man nipped up the stairs and out of the building without question or delay. Cabal watched Leonie watch her former captor run away. Cabal was not particularly insightful when it came to feelings and moods and other subjective states, but there was something he did not quite like about Leonie's manner, even while he approved her decisive and practical approach. But it was hardly his business. "Now?"

They retraced their steps. Cabal was considering where on the head or neck to hit Leonie if she moved to drag Jones to safety, but she did not try. She did not pause by the flame-lit door into the office, where Jones stirred in the burning room, did not even break stride.

At the end of the hall Leonie hesitated, disoriented, and Cabal pushed her in the direction of the door. A few deadbolts, a bar, and they gained the lawn. 

The air was fresh after the wet stone smell of the mill house. The eastern sky showed Prussian blue with a paler glow at the horizon, but the ground was dark and Leonie stumbled. Adrenaline had her back up before Cabal could yank her to her feet.

In that moment a figure rose behind them: Leonie looked back, and Cabal saw it first in her eyes, barely pinpricked with pupils, flame-lit: a dark, broad silhouette braced at a crazy angle in the door. A revolver gleamed in the red inferno under the deep blue predawn sky, streaked with gold at the east.

It occurred to Cabal that he really should be carrying his gun. He had stowed it in the Gladstone, and…. Jones, of course, wanted the Gladstone bag and its contents, the demon-summoning book, his hope of escaping Cabal’s control. Leonie was on the dew-wet grass, snarling, attacking the buckles like they were between her and life itself - which perhaps they were. And as Jones opened his mouth to deliver some final damnation, a broad hole opened up in the air behind him. It opened somewhere full dark, with gleams of ringed firelight upon a barren, rocky landscape; Cabal and Leonie staggered forward as all the air around them tried to leap through the hole at once, and the flames were torn to crackling rags. Jones was carried off his feet and back by the force of the gale. A bullet cracked wildly through the air as his finger tightened on the trigger. As Jones fell backwards and down, down, the fire-glow showed his eyes stretched wide in confusion and disbelief.

A louder shot echoed almost simultaneously. Leonie was kneeling on the grass, both hands steadying the Webley, sending a second bullet into the empty portal, and clicking on an empty chamber once, twice. With a cry of frustration, she threw the gun aside. Cabal stepped nimbly to avoid a broken toe. What had gotten into the _verdammt_ woman? Prolonged nervous strain? Regardless of the reason, this behaviour was as unproductive as it was uncharacteristic. He hated wasting ammunition. As a result, he spoke sharply.

“Get up. He’s far away by now, and your tantrum will draw unwanted attention.” Leonie still knelt on the grass, breathing heavily, jaw tight. 

“Cheer up,” Cabal offered. “Soon he may be wishing you had managed to hit him.” Whenever life became too frustrating Cabal planned to soothe himself with the image of Jones confronting the powers of the dreamland with a four-inch silver pin. Cabal hoped he tried to stick a gug with it. 

Leonie was sick in the grass, her body wracked with dry heaves from an empty stomach. He stood a distance back, staring at the stars with ill-concealed impatience. When she was done she rose shakily to her feet and immediately stumbled a little at a dip in the ground. 

“Miss Barrow.” The sound of his voice seemed to recall her to the present; she focused on him properly for the first time since they left the cell. “We must move quickly, both of us. I have asked… well, there are sources of aid on which even a necromancer may wish to avoid calling." He grimaced slightly. "There may be repercussions for us both."

“Cabal.” Her voice was raspy. She cleared her throat. "Did you ask Twiccian to do that? That was him, with the… door… wasn’t it?” 

"I have not indebted myself to Arthur Twiccian. He did that for his own reasons, I think. I was not sure he could locate us here, although I did hope he was watching. I meant the man who is waiting by the elms on the far side of that hill. Can you walk there?"

“Yes."

"Farewell, Miss Barrow.” And he was gone, walking into the shadows under the trees, without undignified haste but with an evident desire to clear the immediate area. He faded from sight and sound into the night. She was left alone. 

The night was a disorienting patchwork of glaring light and blackness. Flames rose to the rising sun from the empty mill house. She supposed she’d better find those elms, but everything was blurred and dim, even though she could see a brightening in the east that should be lighting the ground. 

She took a moment to collect herself, located the hill and put one bare foot in front of another. She had not gone far before she heard “Leonie?” in tones of agonized hope, and hurrying boots. 

“Dad?” And Frank Barrow was there, tobacco smell and strong arms, sensible moustache and tweed suit. 

“Leonie.” A mist seemed to clear, and she blessed Cabal for knowing, once in his life, the right thing to do and doing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued. I cannot _stop_ writing this series.
> 
> ***
> 
> And - I would like to mention something ridiculously flattering here. My wonderful husband (creator of Twitchy the Litch, i.e. the agoraphobic necromancer who is the inspiration for Arthur Twiccian) has planned a remarkable birthday present for me. He is having a vanity press produce a (single) volume of my Cabal fiction as posted to Ao3, so it can stand on my bookcase next to the proper, brilliant ones. He's done a lovely job with the formatting and extracted a few of your comments to act as blurbs (!).
> 
> So - my best stiff nod of Teutonic approval to my auditor, my audience, my writing's kindest fan, my partner in crime. If only Leonie could stop messing about with this Johannes person and find someone like you.


End file.
